One of the great qualities of watercolor paint is it’s ability to be lifted off the page after it’s painted. I’m going to demonstrate this in the example below. Keep in mind that all colors do not lift off equally. In fact some don’t lift off the page at all. These are known as staining colors. The colors that can be lifted off are nonstaining. In the example below, I’m going to paint in a drop of water on my purple pansie. I’m using my small size 4 round brush. First I apply a drop of water. You can’t see it here but it’s right where my brush is pointing. The size of the drop is the same size as the drop I’m going to paint. I let it sit on top of the paper for a few seconds.
My next step is to dab the drop of water with a piece of paper towel. Next I’m going to scrub on the spot with my damp clean brush in a circular pattern a little bit more and dab with paper towel again. My spot is evident. Let it dry.
Once dry, I’m going to paint a shadow around the bottom edge of my spot using a darker version of the local color (ultramarine blue). My next step is to paint an oval on top of the spot with the same color I used for my shadow.
Then I fade out the lower edge of the oval so it’s not so strong using my damp clean brush. After it’s dry, I add a titanium white dot. Tah dah! Click on the image for a close up.
